Short for Web-Based Enterprise Management, WBEM is a set of management and Internetstandard technologies developed to unify the management of distributed computing environments. WBEM provides a well integrated set of standard-based management tools, facilitating the exchange of data across different technologies and platforms. The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) has developed a core set of standards that make up WBEM.

WBEM has three main components, the Common Information Model (CIM), which provides a common format, language and methodology for collecting and decribing management data. The xmlCIM Encoding Specification defines XML elements, written in Document Type Definition (DTD), which can be used to represent CIM classes and instances. The CIM Operations over HTTP specification defines a mapping of CIM operations onto HTTP that allows implementations of CIM to interoperate in an open, standardized manner and completes the technologies that support WBEM.